“What happened to her?” Park asked. Half-shouted. Neutrality and hospital calmness had gone out the window. She felt as if her skull were clamped too tightly against her brain. She wanted to dive into the sharp, icy corner of the chamber and burrow down into herself and hide.

Dr. Chanur walked up and looked at her. For a moment Park wildly suspected her of being an android: her face was so indifferent, so void of emotion, that Park was suddenly afraid that she had been duped. That she could no longer tell the difference. That no one aboard the ship was real except for her.

“She’s been placed in cryogenic stasis,” Chanur said.

Park surveyed Keller’s still body, encased in its black swathe like a mummy in a sarcophagus. Only her face was visible in the fogged glass of the cryo-tank; her pale eyelashes had bits of frost clinging to them. She looked impossibly fragile. Park tried to say something, but her throat worked uselessly.

“She fell sick,” Chanur continued. “She was having nightmares. I had orders from ISF.”

Park said nothing. She felt as if she had swallowed a cactus. Chanur moved away, and Park stood there, frozen, looking at the lump of Keller’s slight form. The cryogenic liquid churned softly around her like a heart pumping blood. Unthinkingly Park pressed her hand against the cold glass that now housed her mentor’s body.

I’m alone, she thought, her thoughts a blur. Actually alone. I am the Deucalion’s only psychologist. But how can that be? I’m—

Something on the ship slammed shut, far off, and the echo of it sounded like a dull roll of thunder. Park staggered as the Deucalion broke through Eos’s atmosphere with a heart-jerking shudder, rattling the walls and the glass of the pod. She felt as if she were plummeting down to earth with all the force of a falling comet. Keller’s body slowly rotated until she was facedown, slipping under the dark waters within the tank.

Neofelis, Park told herself. I’m neofelis nebulosa. A thing that has gone extinct.

Keller’s body had disappeared from sight. There was nothing but darkness within the tank. Park was left standing there, reaching out to nothing—only staring at the frightened face of her own reflection.

7.

[Hi,

Weirder and weirder shit. Can’t talk much. They have bots watching us at work now. Don’t know if it’s because of the terrorists or because they suspect us of something. Please—watch your back.]

VIDEO LOG #23—Ship Designation CS Wyvern 7079

Day 5: 06:54 UTO

[The HARE reactivates in a dark room; the camera surges suddenly into the air as it unfolds its mechanical limbs and looks around. It’s in the ship’s bunk room, which has been divided by a makeshift partition (made of scrap?). Fin Taban lies on a cot nearby.]

Taban: (sigh)

HARE: Good morning. USER Daley has already begun his morning activities.